Schools are warmly invited to apply to join the seventh phase of this highly successful school linking programme. You will be partnered with a school in France, carefully selected to match your interests and priorities. New partners will meet at a conference in Paris on 17–18 January 2008 and will have time to discuss how they would like to work together. Partner schools in France and England receive advice and support throughout the year to help them to establish successful and motivating projects for their students.

The project encourages linking through a range of activities. Many of the schools in the programme are experimenting with exciting new concepts for engaging students in working together and for teachers to learn from each other.

Purpose of Partnerships

The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust is facilitating these partnerships between English schools and French schools with European Sections in collaboration with the French Ministry of Education, the CIEP and the DfES. These are collèges (11-14 years) and lycées (15-18) in which some subjects are taught through the medium of English. The purpose of the partnerships has primarily been to develop curriculum projects, with the potential also to focus on staff development in relation to bilingual teaching. The emphasis is on improving language learning through communication for real purposes, and our French partners are very keen to develop a larger number of partnerships with schools in England.

The central focus of the partnerships is the setting up of projects of mutual benefit, and the paired schools will be free to choose how they work together. There will be no obligation to undertake pupil visits, and most pupil communication is likely to take place electronically. The staff leading the project need not necessarily be within the languages department, and projects focused on other subjects such as History, Geography, Science, Sport or Drama work well. The French Ministry and the Specialist Schools Trust will take great care to match schools with suitable partners, taking account of the character of the school and the kind of partnership sought. However, we cannot guarantee a match with a specific project that you may have in mind, and we would expect both sides to reach agreement only after consultation and discussion.

Linking with a Lycée or Collège

The different age ranges of the French schools can cause difficulties, and we recommend that schools think carefully about whether a link with a collège or a lycée would best meet their needs. Just occasionally it may be possible to have a dual link with a lycée and its neighbouring collège. In all cases schools should be prepared to show some flexibility when agreeing with the French schools on the year groups that will be involved.

Participating schools will be invited to complete an initial project plan after they have met their partner at the annual conference, and to submit a brief progress report at the end of the Summer Term 2008. It is envisaged that the partnerships will be ongoing and continue into a second year, and hopefully, beyond. Many partnerships set up in the first year of the project in 2001 are still working well. Examples of activities can be viewed on this website.

How to Apply

If you are interested in participating in the project, please download and complete the application form. Please return the form by email to clare.allan@ssatrust.org.uk by 28 September 2007.

All types of specialist schools are welcome to join the programme and we are particularly keen this year to receive applications from humanities, arts, maths & computing, and technology colleges. For the first time this year, there will be a dedicated strand for schools wishing to focus on vocational learning and to link with a lycée professionnel (upper secondary school with a vocational focus).

Partner schools receive advice and support from agencies in their own country, including a free seminar in the summer term.

Funding

We regret that there is no automatic additional funding for schools joining the project. However, we encourage schools to seek funding for teacher visits through the school determined TIPD programme managed by the SSAT. There are other suitable funding programmes available through the British Council to support the partnership. Further help and advice on these opportunities will be available at the January conference.

By returning an application, schools are making a firm commitment to establish a partnership during the current academic year. Clearly, therefore, it will be important that the project fits in well with current priorities and that sufficient time and resources are available to pursue a new initiative at this stage.

For further information and queries please email clare.allan@ssatrust.org.uk on: clare.allan@ssatrust.org.uk or call 020 7802 0776.

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